Been there, Don Det (island)...

Laos is the only landlocked country in south east Asia and yet has four thousands islands...on the Mekong river; this mighty trans-boundary river starts on the tibetan plateau and flows all the way south to finish his course in the south China sea, crossing every country on the way and playing at times as border between Myanmar and Thailand and Laos..
The life on the shores of the river here in Don Det is noisy, because of the engines of the fishermen boats and the locals playing loud music on huge speakers yet peaceful as life in Asian countryside is expected to be....
Walking around (or cycling) as I did today, you still see and feel the real island life: topless old ladies cooking or weaving, cries of newborn babies nearly everywhere, shoutings of wannabe free diver fishermen kids or the sleepiness of the older ones helping the bar/restaurant family business, men building new boats or concrete houses, and chickens and cats and dogs fighting for the leftovers, or maybe the buffalo that chose the stretch of street just below my window for his impressive poop..
Walking around you also see how the island adapted to the tourists that shirtless and Laobeer on hand don't get the usual attention and "Saibadii" (hello in Lao language) from the local kids..
Fruit shakes, samosas and pancakes, and of course sodas and chips are available everywhere, as well as tubing, beers and drugs, but that part you can easily avoid it if you wish!
I guess also I had enough of the quiet and simple island life (already!!) and after my fourth night I am looking for something new...Vientiane, the capital should be my next destination...

cheats never prosper

I am starting to notice a pattern between no yoga practice in the morning and getting in trouble during the day!!!...and of course I love to find myself getting in trouble even if I have officials in front of me...
I mean they are, or maybe they just play the role of, officials, even if some of them are wearing a plain old fashioned white t-shirt (health vest?)...but guess what?! they are still THE officials and you don't wanna run your game in their country, so you should play by their rules!!
That's what I should have thought if I had spent some 15-20 minutes breathing slowly and excercising.....but I didn't, the minivan pick up was estimated for 7:30 (arrived at 8:05 ) and the day before I was up at 4:30 for the sunrise half day trip of the Angkor temples....I have no excuses, I know...
On the minivan we were 10, two scandinavians, two germans, a swiss couple, a austrian, a irish, a japanese and me!!!
The Dong Kralor-Veun Khan land border crossing is the only one between Cambodia and Lao and very well known in this region for being one of the few where if you wanna get stamped out and stamped in you have to pay a 2 US$ fee! (a self set fee from the officials)...
I have always been very annoyed at this kind of corrupted behaviours and I always worked a plan to win over it, and if I have on my records succeeded at Rosso (Mauritania-Senegal) or at Montenegro-Albania one, I knew I had little chances here!!
But that's the challenge, isn't it?? I had even the back up of the rest of the minivan (except the japanese!!)..
After a good 30 minutes of stand up against the wooden stall that the cambodian immigration office is, we managed to get stamped out without paying the "fee", yet the official spitefully stamped us in the middle of a brand new passport page and even worst for me, that I was the head of the revolution, on two separate pages pretending one was a mistake and stamping "cancel" on it!!
Another "battle" waited for us to enter Lao that of course enjoys of a privileged and better position knowing you wouldn't go back to Cambodia just because of the "fee"!!!
A good 40 minutes of haggling and discussion didn't get our passports stamped for free, other travellers would just pass in front of us, complain of the corruptive behaviour, pay and go...
Even our driver started to play by the official side unloading our bags from the minivan and threatening to leave us there..
When we gave up and felt it was enough the wait, and also the useless "Don Chisciotte against the windmills" fight, we paid the fee even though they did oppose against stamping mine of course!!
As soon as they did though we left with our (mine!!) threat to go and talk to the officials in the capital Vientiane as I had taken down their names...
The day (finally) smoothly ended in Don Det, one of the Si Phan Don (four thousand islands) on the Mekong river in a spartan bungalow with a hammock, a bed and a mosquito net over the water for 5 US$, amongst overweight ducks, cute kids, shy internet connection, nicotine addict locals, happy meals (THC added!!) for tourists and not much to do!!!

Angkor what???

intense days in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the Cuzco of South East Asia...a city that is catering for any budget and welcoming any colour and any language, and all the good and the bad things with it; a must stop for many people passing in the region and one of those places that maybe needs to be visited before leaving this planet (eventually)...
The Angkor Archaelogical park, in fact, is an incredible excursion, just few kilometres north of the city, and it brings to present the magic of the power that the Khmer (Angkor) civilization has been...
The area is huge and so are the masses of tourists waking up at 4 o'clock to enjoy of the sunrise that honestly was not as spectacular but that at least it gives you a reason to enjoy of the early hours of the day that are the cooler..
Yesterday, maybe more the style of my traveling, I joined Sam Ath, a management university student that runs half day bike tours in the villages around Siem Reap...
His company excursion has basic stops at local families experiencing simple things as fresh coconuts, pigs and rice fields as well as more interesting ones as rice wine production, rattan basket making and rice noodle making, stopping by a local farmer market too in a 20 km loop around countryside roads and canals..
It seemed an amazing way to spread money around the community and people that don't really have the chance to interact with all those tourists that come here to get the perfect shots of the temples or maybe the perfect selfie for their weekly facebook profile...
Supporting also the young students and generations that still need to recover from a heavy past...
I have been pleasantly surprised by the energies and the smiles and the colours of the experience, yesterday's (pictures) post cannot really tell....

Bayon temple

the power of nature over Angkor

an extraordinary cambogian day..

confident and shiny, a countryside grown up kid...

the predominant colour of the rural area

kids making their day pass...

cat chilling above the rice in the middle of fermentation...

heat, dust and smiles: Phnom Penh

The name doesn't help to remember it, the city itself doesn't offer that much amazing and the temperature doesn't really make you want staying longer, but Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, actually welcomed me into the real and serious travel again, after the slow month and I embraced it quite positively...
A good 11 hours journey using any form of transportations: I rode my rented scooter to the port in Koh Chang, the ferry to get to the mainland, a pick up taxi to the bus station, a mini van to the border, a mototaxi to a old big bus in the sandy bus terminal of Koh Kong and a tuk tuk to reach my hostel...in the middle the border where again I had to give my fingerprints as in Malaysia and USA!!! (I am not that fond of it but I accept it for the sake of traveling, even if it's not a practice used in every other border in Cambodia)... and 37 USD!!!
The first thing of the day was for me to shorten my beard and I ended up doing it myself again as Naden in the unisex barber shop had never seen a long beard before, she panicked, so I handed her 1 US dollar and she passed me the hair trimmer....easy!!
While bouncing from a stall to another I kept fighting the heat with a freshly squeezed orange juice, a freshly hand crushed sugar cane juice, and a big coconut till I reached the Psar Chaa (the old market)...
I love my local markets: live fish being gut next to the chicken sellers, baguette and frogs, fruits and vegetables next to the key cutter and the ladies getting pedicure, clams and flowers while scooters find their way in the crowd.....

efficient young mum frying rice balls and rocking her baby hammock...

a ordinary market perspective

the smiley "peppered eggs moto stall" man...

it looks like a bar turned into a cinema...